Happy New Year

As written in the last entry, the 25 dec we hiked a mirrador close to San Martin de los Andes and headed further to la Islita, an island close to a beach where we had a short swim in the refreshing water!

Mirrador

La Islita

Next morning, we checked with the Park Rangers if it was possible to climb volcano Lanin (3776) and what we would need. We met a german who did it before and he advised us, that a guide is not needed, so we opted for the version without guide. The funny thing about the Lanin Volcano is, that it's covered with permanent ice and snow, so you need crampons to climb it. Furthermore, there is quite a lot of regulations what you need to get the allowance to climb it (eye drops, first aid set, ice axt and helmet, etc.) and the rangers check if you have all of it at the beginning. so we needed to hire some equipment in a store to be ready. In the afternoon, we wanted to visit another lake in the north with hot springs, but we were already a bit late since the 50 km took us way longer to get there since it's all unpaved and very narrow. During this day, we also noticed the ash cloud that covers the sky and the ground (it looks like fog). The reason for this is an active volcano that erupted in June and that is still smoking some 100 km away in Chile. Depending on the wind situation, the smoke is blown to Bariloche, the 7 lakes area or / and villa la Angostura (see later). So we had lunch at the shore and headed back to prepare for the Lanin.

Volcano Lanin 3776 m

 We left early in the morning and arrived at 08.00 at the foot of the Lanin, where the ranger checked our stuff (and was happy with it). To give you an idea of our tour, here the plan:
1 day: hiking up 1500 m for 6-8 hours to reach the refugio on 2660 m altitude. You need to carry water (13 l for 2 people), food, stove, pan, ice axt, crampons, sleeping bag & mat, helmet, cloths so it added up to about 25 kg for 2 people).
2 day: climb to the summit (ascend of 1116 m on a 45 degree slope) and downhill everything back to the base camp (2500 m down) in about 12-14 h.
The first day was pretty though because of the weight that we needed to carry up, but luckily, after 8 hours, we arrived at the refugio and we were the only ones there! only some condors were visiting us there!

The refugio

 Climbing the summit usually goes along with an early start. We left around 5 in the morning due to windy weather before and we climbed 2 snow fields with the crampons pretty quickly. After the snow, we had to pass a horrible rock field, which was very steep before we reached the glacier / snow field on the summit (another hour to climb). Finally, we made it to the top and enjoyed the view, although the ash from the volcano was disturbing it slightly. And from the top, we were also able to see the smoking volcano! (see the picture that looks like a cloud). On the top, we also encountered another Swiss climber that did the volcano in 1 day with light luggage, so he could climb faster than we did (funny: 3 Swiss meet on the top of an Argentine Mountain).
 

45 degrees uphill

Snow field walking

View to the volcano Villarica

On the top with view to the smoking volcano

Downhill through the snow fields is good fun and you can walk very quick, but once we passed the lower refugio, we had to walk down for about 3 hours on gravel with our big backpacks and tired legs (and it was hot as well and we had a lot of very annoying horse flies around us), so we were happy to reach the car. We stopped at a lake close to cool down a bit before driving back to San Martin.

downhill

Next day, we took the car and returned to the route of the 7 lakes, but the ash cloud was following us. We had sore muscles and wanted to enjoy some views at lake Trafull. As we arrived at the lake, we couldn't even see the other side of it, so dense was the fog there, so we continued to Villa La Angostura. There we noticed something that we didn't notice the days before Christmas: This town is heavily hit by the volcanic ash! on the side of the road, you can see as piles, on the roofs is ash of about 10 cm and they clean the roads regularly with water. Also the mountains around are covered with an ash layer, so they are grey on the top!

Ash cloud and covered mountains

Ash on the roof

 We stopped here for dinner and stayed the night (disrupted by an alarm horn at 2 in the morning) because we had to return the car next morning (the car was gray from the ash as well)
After returning the car, we started to organize our next days and we postponed or flight back to the 15.02.2012 (arriving on Thursday the 16.02.2012 in Zurich) :-) so we have some more time here.  Unfortunately, we may encounter some issues regarding the national park of Torres del Paine (in Chile). There is a fire (apparently because a very stupid Israeli was not careful) and they closed down the park at the moment. So we have to check if we can visit it or not.
At the day of new year, we visited the mountain close to Bariloche (Cerro Otto) to have a look around. It was a hot day and the ash cloud was visible again, blocking the view to the lakes around, but still, it was nice. We spend the evening in a Mexican restaurant (besides meat-restaurants, there is not much else) with wine, food, margaritas and champagne! So we wish you all a happy new year and we'll write some more postcards. Apparently some of the cards are still on the way (sent weeks ago) but we still have some time :-)

A typical dinner for 2, 700g of meat